


The Telltale Heart

by haiwannadie_89



Series: The Degrees Of Separation [2]
Category: Durarara!!
Genre: -ish?, Alternate Universe - Canon, Jealousy, M/M, Multiple Universes Colliding, Original Character(s), Slow Burn, envy - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-25
Updated: 2019-05-31
Packaged: 2020-03-17 00:34:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18954322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haiwannadie_89/pseuds/haiwannadie_89
Summary: Shizuo and Izaya meet their counterparts who are, unfunnily enough, in a functional relationship with three kids.(Sequel to previous work, What They Capture, though can be mostly read as a stand alone.)





	1. into the storm and out of the woods

**Author's Note:**

> This story has and always will be, though I didn't always know it, for the people we never understand enough to keep.

 

_"It's too late to move back, yet too early to move on."_

Izaya supposes that there are worse ways to pass the time. 

 

However right now, sitting across the couch with Itsuki pointedly ignoring him, he thinks he has never felt so decidedly sour. Of course, there were definitely worse ways to pass the time. He can think of so many just off the top of his head - waterboarding, hospitals, prison. This was nothing compared to all those. But maybe that was the issue, people needed distractions or else they fell easily into despair. Pascal provided the simple theory: divertissement provided the necessary stimulation to add a touch of _Bonheur_ to one’s inner life, if only to conceal the bleak inner realities of existence and mortality.

 

But maybe he was just being pessimistic. He found himself more caught up in these things as of late.

 

Too often, he finds himself worried about these situations. Progressively, they've started developing their own fair share of conflicts before so this wasn't anything  _new_ , but if that were the case, why did he feel so anxious? Apparently, the answers were inscribed in his ceiling or something, if the amount of time he has spent staring at it is any indication for results.

 

Sighing, Izaya crosses his arms with shut eyes. Being closed-off is his main methods of handling personal matters. Orihara Izaya has always known how to detach himself from situations if the need arises - or if it's just too much to handle, it seems. Not that he's all that proud of it anymore.

 

He had been insensitive - he knows it. Prior to this, Itsuki had come shuffling home with bags under his eyes, looking ten years too early for it. Then again, izaya himself had often worn that similar look near that tender age, when he was basically left with two younger sisters to look after and not a hint of what to do. But other than that, most of his childhood had been breezy, if forgettable. What really surprised him about his current situation, was when this little brunette decided he could be sneaky and quietly placed a crinkled but formal-looking letter on the coffee table before edging away. 

 

"Stay." And he stilled immediately.

 

Getting off from his working station, Izaya gently handled the letter before swivelling around his chair so that Itsuki would not see him rubbing his fingers against his aching temple, slow and methodically. Another situation at school, another meeting. It really has been piling up the past few weeks. The first few times, Izaya has let it slide unquestioned. It's normal, these things he has observed so commonplace that it is forgettable, really. He figured that sometimes those problems are something that kids had to work through by themselves, coddling was no use in the long run But there comes a time where these situations carry on for far too long and could not be ignored any longer. 

 

"Before I open this," his voice cuts sharp and thin through the clouding tension in the room. All as he waves the envelope in his left hand, pivoted from a sharp edge. "Why don't you consider explaining yourself first."

 

He's had experience with these sorts of warning letters before and the best thing he has learnt was that it was better to let the kids articulate themselves first. Mairu, in particular, was prone to bouts of behavioural issues and spontaneous phone calls, even though he had never bothered actually attending to those before. And it wasn't like their parents were concerned enough to fly into Japan just to check-in. 

 

The first and only time he has went was because Kururi had really begged him to. All in all, he had found it a rather humbling experience. 

 

"I don't wanna go to school anymore." Over the years, Itsuki had grown increasingly more similar to a violent-tempered brute he once and still knew, all whilst possessing a self-assured confidence that Izaya's supposed he himself has carried all throughout their later years in life. A combination that they've always been wary about before, but has now started to grate on even  _him._

 

 _"_ And  _why_ would you want to?" 

 

"I just want to do my own thing." The real problem was that his 'own thing' was never concrete, and while Izaya appreciated variety, he also appreciated logic. 

 

When he was younger, Itsuki went from wanting to be a zookeeper, to a plastic surgeon and then a bookstore owner. Currently he was interested in the field of marine biology. Izaya admits, he's greatly annoyed by this thought process - it was just too odd! How did any of them even link together?

 

"Darling _,_  you know I love you. If I decided to kill you and bury the body no one would ever know. So go back to doing your work, you're not dropping out of school."

 

"Why? Why can't I just be home-schooled instead! It could be your birthday present to me! I know that you always have a hard time choosing anyway. I know you still don't really have an idea of what to - "

 

"I have more important things to do," Izaya snaps, not appreciating being read by even his child yet conflictingly feeling a swell of pride. "and the entire purpose of the school is to educate you on things that your parents don't really have time for. You're the one who's always acting like a brat that it's even getting too much for me." He hisses.

 

" _You're_ the one who tells me to burn my homework!" Itsuki's voice rises, and it's almost cute because he's still at the age where his voice is fluctuating in varying degrees, except the assertion in his tone is too strong to miss out on. 

 

"That was a  _joke._ " Izaya stresses. Well, partly. It was only because he's never really needed to complete homework, but he's never set them on fire either.

 

The other people there suck anyway, I'm not -" his faced scrunched up in shame, and it is here where Izaya starts to unravel what this whole thing is really about. "I'm not like you, okay, people aren't fun to me and it's grating to be around some of them." 

 

"Well, that's not exactly your choice to make."

 

Itsuki's face falls, and Izaya feels like the worst that he has always heard everyone referring to him as. Only this time, it did matter. How did he ever manage to have unconditional love of this young boy sometimes he doesn't know, and sometimes he didn't exactly know how to get it back either. 

 

Really, Izaya may be a carefree individual but how was any parent supposed to react to this, realistically? Shizuo would have probably been able to handle it better, been more understanding - in the sense that he  _had_ experienced these things before and came out better. Sadly, he was out with his old work friends at Asakusa. Tom-san had moved there when he settled down to some woman, and as far as he knew Varona was still working for the underground, though at least Shizuo was aware of it now. 

 

Izaya ponders this for so long that he does not notice that the day has faded to evening. Absently, he notes a two small calls of 'I'm home' at different timings from the girls but it was only until he felt the absence of warm sunlight and the cool breeze of the night that he blinked out of his stupor. It seems that Itsuki has left a while ago. Well, no matter, Izaya would settle just what was wrong at his school, and this would all blow over by the next day. Things always do.

 

Silently cursing himself for his continued indifference, he heads to his room. On the way, he looks out the same, wide windows that he has known for years, at all the cars retreating from the light. He imagines what they would look like even later at night, just before twilight - his favourite time - with their neon headlights leaving luminescent, almost otherworldly, trails behind. Later in the room, he envisions it. However he knows, when he closes his eyes, that those lights still remain in front of him, and that when he tries to reach out his hands, they touch nothing, and he is left with the same feeling lingering in his chest.

 

"I see you're still doing those stretches."

 

Shizuo made the most endearingly redundant comments when he didn't need to. Izaya lazily opens his eyes, arms still outstretched at nothing above him. He faces Shizuo with a half-lidded look that he knows still mildly annoys this other, and turns his body the opposite way on the bed.

 

Shizuo closes the door gently, making the barest of sounds. And he used to be such a loud man, too. But maybe his theory on names reflecting one's personality could still hold some water.

 

He feels the side of the bed sinking with Shizuo's added weight and a hand suddenly appears at his side, caressing his waist soothingly.

 

"What's wrong?"

 

Ah, what powerful intuition. Or perhaps he has gotten too soft - he was already forty-eight and still yearned desperately to be twenty-five again. Was this what Shizuo felt all those years ago, that impending sense of mortality and melancholy? Probably not, honestly. While the threat of mortality was still there and still feared, Izaya has learnt, years ago and very painfully so, that his death was inevitable and has learnt to accept it. Furthermore, there have never been any accomplishments that he was particularly mourning over, he wasn't prone to self-confidence issues except concerning very few people. So what was it? Not just why did he yearn for the past but what exactly did he yearn for? Of course, the irony of him being obsessed with the past is not lost on him, for it may as well be his God for how much it dictated his actions now.

 

"He's mad at me." Izaya sighs, trying to make it sound less dreadful than it actually is.  _He doesn't hold me in the same high regard as he used to anymore._

 

"Who - Suki?"

 

"I wasn't aware that we had any other 'he's' unless you're cheating on me - Shizu-chan! How could you destroy my maiden heart like that?" bleats Izaya, and the tears he has expertly drawn up are nothing more than crocodile, but the expression he's wearing is still convincing enough to kick Shizuo right where it hurts.

 

"Wha - no, shut up. You know I wouldn't." To any outsider, the apparent nervousness in Shizuo would have been a cause for alarm, but really, it was just that Shizuo was too soft for his own good sometimes.

 

"I know, I know. You get really shocked when I bring these things up though, I wouldn't mind watching your reactions forever. It's like you're hearing it for the first time every time."

 

And with that, Shizuo has rolled his eyes and stopped feeling worried. "It's not like I don't know what cheating is, I just, don't want to associate it with any part of us."

 

"You used to think differently about me." Izaya recalls, sadly.

 

"I know," Oh, he's ashamed. "And I'm still sorry for that but it's all in the past. Let's just get back to what we were talking about 'kay?"

 

"Yes sir!" suddenly, Izaya's eyes cloud over in darkness and he smirks next to Shizuo's ear. "Or would you rather I call you  _Daddy?_ "

 

Shizuo shoves Izaya off then, but still keeps a firm hand on his shoulder to steady him. "I know what you're trying to do and it's not working. Don't change the subject, what really happened that's got you this fu - uh, ticked off?"

 

Humming, Izaya drops his act but never loses that playful flair in his actions.

 

"Shizu-chan, what kind of parent do you think I am?"

 

Shizuo pondered this for a while.

 

"I think...you're not bad with kids, actually. Even back then with Akane, even if you  _were_ manipulating her, she actually really liked you, even if she called you creepy. And when it comes to our own children, you've been, really understanding actually. When we first started out, I wasn't sure if you were just trying to appease me or something, but then I saw that, Izaya, you are really trying." He smiles, but it doesn't exactly reassure him.

 

"But there is a catch isn't there?"

 

"Flea, this is  _you_ we're talking about. Yeah, there is gonna be a catch. Even if you try to be a bit distant sometimes, it's like you can't help but seep into everyone's lives all the time. And it's really apparent with those three."

 

"You are just kind of, withdrawn? Yeah, I think that's the word."

 

"What do you mean?" Izaya groans, knowing exactly what Shizuo meant.

 

"I feel like you just don't know how to talk to them that well when it comes to certain emotions. You can clearly understand what they feel in extreme situations, but when it comes to normal problems it's like you can't connect. At the same time, you're also kind of pervasive, it's like you're imbedded in all of them them in some way.Listen, I'm not exactly happy about Suki's situation at school either, but I do, understand it." 

 

"Oh I know you do. How could you not? Especially since I was the one who put you through all of it, just like how I'm doing the same to our child it seems. I suppose some things just never change." Izaya spat, sounding flat and hard.

 

"Izaya..." A heavy concerned gaze peeks through Shizuo's bangs, and all of a sudden Izaya feels worse.

 

"Sometimes I still get confused with this look of yours." Izaya mentions sadly, running his hands through bronzed locks instead of that tacky but fitting yellow he used to have. It seemed to symbolise the closing of a chapter in his life he wasn't sure he wanted complete yet.

 

"It's been three years, Izaya. And I mean, it's my natural look." He says, grabbing his hair as if surprised that it  _is_. Izaya still believes that his natural look will always be bottle blonde and dangerous.

 

"Yes, yes, but these things take time. I think it just reminds me of my own hair - I've managed to keep myself looking relatively young all this time, but there's only so much a human can do."

 

"Screw all that, I can't wait to see you get proper wrinkles up your forehead and have your cheeks sag a bit more. That'll be cute." Shizuo says, scarily earnest, as he kisses said cheeks. How he managed to make his ageing sound appealing Izaya really did not know. Shizuo himself has aged well, the time tracing his face makes him look robust instead of weary, adding an added layer of maturity to his features he's never quite been able to live up to. But he has always been timeless, like an old soul in a young body.

 

"Shizu-chan! That is the most terrifying thing you have ever said. No way! I absolutely must not!" He shrieked only half-jokingly. Half. If he was being entirely honest, his looks were never something he paid excessive attention to, only noting it for how it drew others to trust him and surround him. Say anything about Orihara Izaya but let it be known that he has never been overly interested in himself; only ever others.

 

Shizuo merely hummed some old tune in response, cradling Izaya as he did so.

 

"Ugh, this is getting creepy. You know, you're always thinking about the weirdest things Shizu-chan, I can't follow your knowledge at all." Izaya said and sat up. "But it's sweet, I think. You're so caring it almost hurts. I used to think that you didn't deserve anyone but now I know it is the other way around. Who could deserve you? I feel a bit guilty."

 

"Guilty?" Shizuo was startled by this revelation.

 

"Oh, it's nothing." Izaya hummed, meaning that it was clearly something. "Sometimes I feel like, I'm keeping you all to myself, and you could find some homey woman who could match you, but no one could, nobody bloody deserves you." His voice like an echo of a siren, or some other fairyland, all together encapsulating a deep sense of eeriness whilst still being serene. 

 

"...does that count as a swear?" Shizuo asks nervously, not really wanting to continue down this dangerous line of thinking. And Izaya giggles louder, clambering into Shizuo's lap as he snuggles more into his hair.

 

Izaya had always had this idea that Shizuo would abandon him - which was ironic, since he had always been the one running away. Unfortunately, it felt as if the rest of the family had firmly inherited this trait as well. It was like they had all made some non-existent connection between Izaya's perceived femininity and Shizuo's unchecked aggression and was under the impression that he was simply girl-deprived. Well, his kids were all a bit paranoid and weird, he supposes. As the years went by, they slowly grew out of that perception. Izaya, however, still had the suspicion that Shizuo would grow tired of putting up with him, but he was Izaya, and he could usually talk himself out of it soon enough.

 

He wondered how much longer it would take before Izaya believed that he would never leave him. He pictured them thirty years later, in their late seventies, old and wiry like how Simon seemed to look these days, with Izaya still clinging tight an arm's length away. Once, he told Izaya about this after he had ( _still_ ) proclaimed to be 'forever 21', (he could at least pass off for early thirties) and he had laughed, though Shizuo had meant it very seriously.

 

Shizuo felt it important that he said something to calm Izaya's growing unrest in return, but he really could not find the words to say. It sometimes felt as though words eluded him, as if they were too afraid to be in his grasp as well. He rubbed circles around Izaya's waist for comfort instead - he found himself doing that a lot.

 

Leaning upwards, he kissed Izaya hard and rough and altogether sweet at the same time. One of those kisses that held everything he needed to say over.

 

Izaya let out a soft sigh, Shizuo took that as Izaya urging him to continue. Nudging his way down his neck, then his collar, Shizuo then finds his favourite spot on Izaya's chest - the area right over his heart. Shizuo's favourite neutral position in the morning was lying half-awake with his head shielding this spot. He's recounted this to Izaya before, and Izaya responded by saying he comes up with a new favourite spot every week or so.

 

"Last week you said it was behind my ears, and the week before it was my temple - don't get Alzheimer's on me now."

 

"Really? Hm."

 

"I think I'm just too irresistible for you. You just want everything from me, isn't that right?" He teases, but there's a crack, a slight uncertainty there that isn't quite convinced.

 

Shizuo opens his mouth to breathe against the spot, he can feel Izaya shuddering above him as he does. Then, he bites down on it, causing Izaya to flush and dig his hands into his brown mane, pulling the pain away. When he's done, he licks his lips and leans back. There's a large, bright red mark left there, marking him for the time being. It looked like a calling, he thought, a proof of a sensitive heart beneath that cold, pale skin.

 

"From fairest creatures we desire increase, that thereby beauty's rose might never die." Izaya's voice is soft and murmurous after being so thoroughly taken apart. "One on another's neck do witness bear, that every tongue say beauty should look so."

 

"Where's this one from?"

 

"Oh, here and there - they're from sonnets. One was about a dark lady, and another, a young, darling boy."

 

"Cool. Sounds romantic."

 

"Which part, though?"

 

"The earlier part. Wouldn't it make sense? If it's about the lady." 

 

"Now isn't that interesting. Actually, that part was about the young boy, 'Fair Youth', was the series. I suppose then, you fall in line with what most people would consider romantic, considering those sonnets are considered to be more flattering. I myself rather find the ones about that elusive mistress to be more amorous in its flirtations.  _'All this the world well knows yet none knows well,/To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.'"_

 

"No way that's more romantic."

 

"We'll just agree to disagree then." Izaya shrugs.

 

Over the years Izaya found himself switching from philosopher to playwrights to ideologists and so on. He's always liked taking in diverse forms of knowledge, but this was different than his average information gathering. And so, from the great minds of Wilde and Poe, to Kant and Wittgenstein, Marx and Adam Smith, Dōgen Zenji and a few others he traversed. They were mostly filled with odd western and occasionally middle-eastern names that held no meaning in Shizuo's world. He thinks that Izaya is trying to search for something - some understanding or all-encompassing truth, for some reason.

 

 _"Why do you do that?"_ He once questioned when Izaya was pouring over Nietzsche with great fervour. Beside that pile was his usual workload along with report cards from school and the the tax papers that Shizuo was almost 99% certain he evaded half the time. And underneath that was Allan Poe, with sounds of hearts bursting through the floorboards.

 

 _"Broadening my worldview."_  He said as if that was all he needed to explain himself. That was the only context Shizuo was given before his mind wandered away again, leaving him just as confused as when he asked.

 

Shizuo recalls that book, from a few years ago. Ever since they came back from that one vacation he's asked to borrow the Japanese version from Hana and occasionally comes back to it. He leaves the English with her to help her study. Sometimes, if a part interests him enough, he leaves sticky notes in there with his thoughts. Most adorably, the next time he opens it, either Hana or Haru will have commented on his own thoughts, leading to a situation where they'll have small conversations with each other at different points in time.

 

He has sort of taken whatever it said as a learning experience of sorts, even to the point where he's tried doing those Zen thinking things to see if they'd work, though they felt too embarrassing for him to really continue with wholeheartedly. It has given Shizuo a newfound liking of books beyond detective noirs and those 'coming-of-age' ones into other stuff, like contemporary novels and romances. Izaya says they're called 'bildungsroman', but to Shizuo that sounded like too ugly and complicated of a term to associate. Regardless, it has led him to pick up a bit of Murakami and Ozeki over the years. Maybe it was like that with Izaya, just more extreme.

 

Recently, Izaya himself has grown obsessed over Shakespeare. It was unexpected on Shizuo's end, since Izaya never struck him as the type who would like reading about the times of old. It was nothing he hadn't read before, Izaya had said when asked, but the words seemed to possess a newfound tangibility to him. Of course, Oscar Wilde would forever be up there at the very top, but he could not deny the certain spark of feeling he got from those plays, right down to the man's very last words.

 

_"Cursed be he that moves my bones."_

 

"England's national poet indeed." He had mused.

 

He's been reading the plays to Itsuki or Haru if they wanted to hear it. Sometimes, Shizuo would sit in too, but he wasn't one for understanding these complicated ideas, nor did he really care.

 

"Well fuck it," Shizuo says when he's done thinking. Izaya's face and chest was still red from earlier, his eyes possessing only the sharpest slit of red leaking through. "we always disagree anyway."

 

"I'll get the money from your wallet tomorrow." Izaya says, sounding like he's expired all his needs for talking today. "

 

"And just so you remember, it was those disagreements that led to our severely messed up history." Shizuo flinches at the memories. There were very little good in them, during the time where they were both at their worsts selves.

 

Izaya sometimes wondered if Shizuo truly loved him, or if he only loved the peace that accompanied a lack of fighting and riots that came with making amends not only with yourself, but with the people surrounding you.

 

 _Will we ever be able to truly move beyond our pasts, I wonder? Or will the deed stay chronicled in our hells._ He thought, but immediately brushed it away. It was times like these were he remembered how dangerous it was to obsess over the past, for what only mattered was the present and future.

 

Still, a part of Izaya wishes he could disappear as easily as he used to. Guilt was an emotion he feels he could never get used to having but needing to confront every day. Uncharacteristically, he silently prays his problems away. He knows that it won't be answered, because there was no such thing as a God.

 

And so, they fall asleep that night like that, the two individuals wrapped up in their own little minds whilst their bodies were tangled together.

 

...

 

"IIIIIIIZZAAAAYAAAAAA-KUUUUN! COME BACK HERE SO I CAN SMASH YOUR FUCKING FACE IN!!" It was at that moment that the residents of Ikebukuro heard the breaking and bending of metal being crushed against a brick wall, whilst the intended target flitted away, expertly sending back a series of blades at his attacker.

 

Ah, how had he gotten caught in this situation again? Not that he particularly minded being chased around sometimes (it was, after all, a show of his superior abilities against a monster's, securing his status a step ahead of Shizuo's and any other threats in this city), but it was getting on his nerves as well. He had only intended to come here for business today and slip away quickly like he did most days, but a wild Shizu-chan just had to appear and chase away one of his more unique clients.

 

Pity, this one was new. A man who had worked and backstabbed his way into power, power which often blindsides one's person. Izaya wanted to watch this one unfold slowly, with his desires laid bare to the world and have him acknowledge his humanity. That would have been lovely. His one desire from his humans is seeing them at their purest.

 

It was only when Izaya sidesteps into a narrow alleyway and ducks into one of the doors where he finally loses Shizuo amongst the chaos. He is slightly sweaty and exhausted, but the thrum in his veins that occurs whenever one of these chases happens is real, with excitement coursing through his blood.

 

After pacing his breath into something more even and controlled, he dials the client back. If he was lucky, he would be able to convince him to carry out their deal. Unfortunately, said man was extremely pissed and decided it was in his best interest to complain nonstop, which was amusing in itself, but less so when he declined ever working with Izaya. He could have probably made up some story to the clientele if he really wanted to keep working with him (after all, he thinks he could have had an interesting direction for this one if he played his cards right), that is, if the thought of being perceived as being lower the man and pitied didn't revolt him to the core.

 

Instead, he politely ended the conversation and resolved to expose his nefarious dealings later. Stuffing his phone back into his pocket, Izaya happily skipped and whistled away back to his apartment. Another lovely day passing by.

 

...

 

Shizuo just wishes Izaya would be  _gone_.

 

 _"DiediediediediediediediedieDIE_ \- wish that fucking flea was dead in a ditch and wish he would just be  _gone_ \- " Shizuo muttered gutturally, voice like a rising storm. Remembering how he had immediately caught sight of Izaya's smug face as he hopped away to make his shitty living, his eyes darkened over dangerously. How many times has it been already that he has failed in his one desire to see Izaya's cold body dead and battered? To finally give that asshole a fraction of the medicine that he deserves and pummel his body to death. Was that  _really_ too much to ask for?!

 

He hadn't realised his fists were breaking through sandy, coarse brick walls until it was too late to realise. Shizuo made a disapproving noise at the back of his throat and shook his still-unscathed fist of the sharp rocks and rubble.

 

"If he would just disappear, then everything would be peaceful."

 

The gentle serration of the winds seemed to flow in agreement.

 

...

 

He is edging and floating, like a fallen leaf during autumn, carried on by the will of an outsider force that is far beyond his control.

 

He blinks his eyes open with much difficulty, the lids feeling as though they weighed like stones. Looking around, everything seems hazy, distorted, nebulous, unstructured and messy. Unrecognisable shapes are whirling past him, contradictorily quickly but muddy and slow all the same with the splashes of otherworldly oranges and purples and blues and more swirling into a vortex. It feels as though he's moving through glass but walking on air.

 

Is this what death feels like? He has always wondered what the process towards eternal sleep was like, but he hated dwelling on it for too long. He only wished to experience the feeling to satisfy his curiosity, and come back out knowing with a hundred percent certainty how much better it was to  be alive.

 

The flotsam and jetsam of dead hours and expanses were aimlessly airing by, all of a sudden, he's thrust into a spiral of epileptic colours and gamma-bright flashes of white.

 

He's heard countless stories of people dying in their sleep, Death, ever the stealthy and sly mistress - sneaking in through the windows, under the bed, beneath the cracks of the floorboards - in the middle of those dark, dark nights, to smuggle away precious human lives. In ancient Greece, people did believe Death was the twin to Sleep - another reason why he disliked wasting his time with it. Was he undergoing some form of Sudden Death Epilepsy? Cardiac Arrhythmia?

 

Everything quickens, shooting past him in unnaturally high speeds, until he feels that his body is going to hit a brick wall, about to stop abruptly even though the rest of his self has been left far behind. And beyond that -

 

 

The rest is silence.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I don't exactly have a planned release date for each chapter, but I do have the ending written out. I've actually had the last chapter written out since the very start. It took me forever to get this first chapter out because I could never be satisfied with it, but I realised that if this was ever going to see the light of day I needed to complete it. I don't think this beginning will ever really be good enough, but I am certain, quite so, that its end will be just right.
> 
> On a lighter note, it feels great to write Shizuo and Izaya as they canonically are again: yelling and scheming. Their actions always loud and dynamic, seemingly prepared for an audience of none but themselves. :ppp


	2. in a whole new world

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Haha life succs hallelujah.

_“If I change shape, and you forget time, do the spring leaves ever fall?”_

 

Izaya wakes up feeling as though he has plunged himself into a whole new world.

 

At first, everything was normal, deceptively so. Although his bedsheets were more ruffled than usual. He was not one for tossing and turning in his sleep, and he has no recollections of dreaming anything the previous night. Passing it off as morning drowsiness, he stretches out of the bedding and makes his way to the bathroom.

 

(Of course, he does not yet notice the framed picture on his bedside that has definitely never been there before.)

 

Even when he showers, he somehow feels that everything is wrong. As though the laws of physics itself has been entirely warped in some way, minute but there. Though, the water still flowed down with the permanent force of gravity and washed everything from the previous days clean away. Grime, grogginess, guise.

 

Reaching for his shampoo, even it felt different, less smooth. Weird. Even that was wrong, different. The brand name was one he would never even think of touching - too cheap, and did not have the same silky quality he liked that was present in, different types of shampoo. Despite that, he brushes it off as being clumsy while shopping, which is rare - he's never clumsy. Gods were never careless after all, they were omniscient, in their perfect giant homes.

 

And if God's in his heaven, all's right with the world.

 

He leaves the shower feeling more disgusted than refreshed, like he's entered a purgatory of some sort. What was with his place today? There were things in here that most definitely had no place in his household, much less the vanity area. The makeup - okay, that wasn't too unusual; he has certain means to get through to people sometimes - but  _sparkling purple_? And the books were atypical and weirdly varied, some more suited to the taste of teenaged girls, and others perhaps a few intent readers of the magic realism audience. Though, there were also some he recognised as the ones he had at home, but he is certain that he has never brought them to his bedroom to read before. And he can't remember the last time he invited his sisters over - if ever, really - but they most certainly never played with  _toys._ Most troubling of all, however, were the dusty bottles of half-empty  _blonde_ hair dye, shoved and forgotten to a corner. Izaya would most definitely  _never_ have needed those. He squints and turns the offending bottle in his hand, looking at it from every bizarre angle. It just didn't fit. 

 

Trembling, he sets it back down so fast that it hits the marble top with a  _clang_. He does not know why he's shaking. It's as though someone has uprooted his own stage, warped his very being. He feels like an imposter in his own home. 

 

"Just what is happening." He speak to the face in the mirror. Predictably, it doesn't answer unless he tells it to.

 

He pushes himself away angrily, unnaturally annoyed at the day's events. It hasn't even been a few hours since he woke up but something was  _terribly_ wrong.

 

And when he gets out, he sees exactly why.

 

A wild Shizu-chan is on his bed, reading a book. Similar to those ones at the vanity.

 

What. The. Hell.

 

Izaya gapes at him for a solid three minutes, until even Shizuo starts to get worried. As soon as he moves to get up, Izaya shuts the bathroom door behind him in record speed. He makes the slow count to ten and begins to squeak it open again. His mind a wreck of speeding thoughts. Brown hair? Shizu-chan? Reading?  _Brown-haired Shizu-chan reading?_

 

"..."

 

_Nope, still there._

 

It was almost too funny, but he wasn't laughing.

 

Swiftly, he lunges himself to his closet to acquire the extra blade that was always hidden in his jacket - only, he can't. This closet was mixed with someone - or a few someone's else's clothings,  including some very _revolting_ _familiar_ bartender outfits.

 

Before Izaya could contemplate on his next move, at that moment, the door opened to reveal a young girl. She was a bit on the petite side - delicate, with a sharp diamond face and sharper brown eyes with black, silky hair flowing just past her shoulders. She was pretty no doubt, and looked around high school, so  _why_ was she here, gliding in as if it was a comfortable routine. Izaya gapes -  _just what is happening?_

 

He doesn't and has  _never_ slept with anyone anywhere younger than twenty-one!

 

He barely registers her speaking. 

 

"Breakfast's ready, come on out to eat. Eh, Otousan, you look really pale." She said, taking a step forward worryingly. 

 

Silence, Izaya didn't know who she was referring to.

 

_Otousan?_

 

_Maybe she's talking about Shizu-chan, maybe he's infected some poor girl with his monstrous genome and this is just a by-product. Nevermind that she did not look like Shizuo in the slightest._

 

_There was a possibility that Shizu-chan's monster genes weren't_ that  _dominant, right?_

 

_...wait, just what the hell am I thinking?_

 

"...Ah, I'm fine." He's unsure whether whatever he does will have any implications yet, but if Izaya were anything he would most certainly be cautious. He wasn't stupid enough to disclose just how in the dark he was yet. This territory was foreign, and he was going to throw caution to the wind and edge his way along slowly. Whatever it takes, he would make things happen on his own terms. 

 

A warm but strong hand lands on his shoulder and he almost jumps ten feet backwards. He doesn't. However, he flinches ever so slightly - it's negligible, really. Startled claret eyes meet flaxen and for a second, he has forgotten how to breathe, and Izaya almost resolved to stab him right then and there.

 

"You sure?" Shizuo's voice sounds so naïve, and his words, embarrassingly direct, Izaya feels completely exposed by them. The sound of  _him_ echoes deeply in his head and Izaya almost feels intoxicated by everything that has transpired over the last few minutes, and he hates how it is starting to make him lose himself.

 

_"You - "_

 

"If you say so," The girl cuts him off before he nearly makes an uncharacteristic mistake, "anyway, I'm heading to school early today. Kanna wants to meet up to do homework."

 

"Stay safe, and can you walk Suki to school too?" Shizuo asks, firm hand still on Izaya's shoulder, as if trapping 

 

"Sure, but seriously, he's old enough to be able to go by himself. I mean, Haru-nee was seven when she started making her way around herself." She complained, but only barely.

 

And, in the most unexpected turn of events, she walks forward to give them both a peck on the cheek before leaving. 

 

He has heard of people short-circuiting, or their brains shutting down with no understanding of the rest of the world in that moment, but he has never expected himself to be so shocked that he'd experience it himself. There's never been anything in his life that was so unpredictable that it was disarming, nothing that was beyond his understanding.

 

Except, when it came to  _him_.

 

Izaya only jolts to life when he feels the heat radiating at his back, from the shape of a sizeable hand slipping to his waist. Immediately, he jumps at least ten feet away, still facing Shizu-chan - Shizuo, with wariness in his eyes.

 

"What the - Izaya? What's wrong with you today? You're acting weird."

 

That's right, he absolutely cannot act brashly anymore. There has to be...something this situation would offer him, and he needs to figure out more to do so while not raising alarm. That's right, he would come out of this in his own terms.

 

Straightening himself without losing all the taut lines of stress in his body, just in case, he walks towards Shizuo, careful to stand back a foot as he follows.

 

"Just peachy." He smiles without comfort.

 

 

Izaya spends the rest of his time changing contemplating the situation. He has narrowed it down to possibly he fact that he has been kidnapped, likely by one of his older, more powerful clients, and was currently put under some special sort of torture. Seems a bit excessive, but humans were nothing if not restless and greedy in their pursuits. When they exit to the living room, he sees a boy.  _Now this is just terrifying._ The remote control was resting on his alpaca themed-clad stomach for easy access. Terrible posture, and probably going to give him arthritis. He also, did not seem to want to acknowledge Izaya's presence, which was a small comfort in this endless madness, these strange happenings. 

 

If Izaya was being honest, he looked like a mini Shizu-chan. Except with red eyes.

 

_Just what sort of Karisawa fantasy have I entered into?_

 

He takes the time to observe any differences. Furnishing wise, nothing is actually different from his own set-up back home, just more messes scattered upon the floor, and bits of more colour here and there.

 

The people who planned this must have been careful to emulate his apartment, line-by-line, no less. But then, they had been stupid enough to forget that the Fighting Doll of Ikebukuro was blonde, not brunette.

 

For this could be nothing more than an elaborate joke, he kept telling himself. A joke for which someone would have to pay for dearly. And the one to pay the most would certainly be the not-blonde-not-bartender beast at his side, who looked a bit too concerned for comfort. 

 

The sound from the television brought his attention away. It was displaying an old Disney movie with Japanese subtitles at the bottom. Ironically or perhaps fittingly, it had hit a scene where the main leads were riding on a flying carpet, singing about a  _'Whole New World'._ Izaya is despaired at finding himself relating to mindless children's media. When had his life turned into such a joke, a dive into the twilight zone. Next thing he knows a towering 500-foot Martian will appear, warning him of the end of times. He would rather prefer that, actually.

 

He is on constant guard as he manoeuvres around the couch to the tiny island in the middle of his kitchen. Shizuo seats down next to him, there's a hand that comes onto Izaya's shoulders that just  _simmers_ and  _smoulders_ through his loose shirt, instantly touching skin. Izaya flinches that hand off, glaring metaphorical daggers in place of the literal ones he _would_ have had prepared and preferred.

 

Shizuo looks extremely taken aback, eyes wide with vulnerability and so out of character that Izaya is almost more surprised than amused, but he takes his hand back, looking more guilty than angered. His heavy weight of disquiet etched on Izaya's every move afterwards. Izaya ignores it as easily as he can and focuses on the contents of the table instead, where breakfast was comprised of plain rice and miso soup: just how he liked it. He felt his stomach lurch at the thought, feeling greatly violated. 

 

Nonetheless, he gingerly lifts the spoon to his mouth, spending a great amount of time speculating each grain of rice before experimentally taking a bite. It tasted too good.

 

As they continue eating, he finds that Shizuo fast forwards the 'scarier' (was an Arabic man with a most horse-like face and a giant snake really considered traumatising???) parts of a film while watching it with - there was no denying it - his kids. The girl - Hana was her name, honestly Izaya was quite disappointed at their naming choices, they were all probably Sh- complained about Shizuo being too soft, but the young boy did not seem to mind much. Actually, Izaya found that his attention was extremely focused on his being, scrutinising him, even if he kept feigning ignorance when Izaya glanced back.

 

It was too surreal.

 

"How nice it would be..." The older, _other_ girl muttered. (Just how many were there?) "to be able to have a genie. You know, to save the day, grant wishes. Stuff like that." She said, pumping her fists lazily.

 

"You'd only have three wishes." Itsuki mumbled.

 

"Well, three is plenty! What would a greedy boy like you even want beloved-brother-whom-I-love-and-am-totally-not-asking-because-I-still-don't-know-what-you-want-for-your-birthday."

 

"Some peace and quiet in here, for once." Hana said in her straightforward manner.

 

Haru raised her eyebrow, jumping up from her spot on the couch. "That should be my line!"

 

"I like things as they are now," Shizuo says, eyeballing Izaya from the side. "mostly."

 

Itsuki merely shrugs as a response. 

 

"Dammit again!" She exclaims, pulling at her brown locks in frustration. She grabs Itsuki by his shoulders and shakes him about frantically, all the while the young boy managing to maintain one of the best poker faces Izaya has ever seen. He must have gotten it from his uncle. Izaya frowns at that thought, disturbing it was.

 

"Why won't you make my life easier for me and stop being a cryptic little thing! All I want to do is try to be a good sister for you but you make it so haaard!!" Squawking crows could not compare to her whining. She relents after a while and puts a hand on her chin while giving out an exasperated sigh. "Well, I actually think it'd be pretty nice to have more friends sometimes."

 

"That's surprisingly honest." Hana blinked.

 

"You'll be fine. I used to wish I had more people surrounding me as well, but in the end you realise that it doesn't matter how many people you have but which ones will stick with you till the end." 

 

"Otouchan...that was surprisingly deep." 

 

"Oi, _surprisingly_?" 

 

"You're alright," Itsuki's face softens as he looks back at his sister, acting more an older sibling, a role reversal that did not go unnoticed by Izaya. "I mean, Ha-ni has friends, and I don't know how people manage to stay around her for so long."

 

"Said by the devil himself, I see."

 

"Izaya?" A hand occupies his field of vision and his attention is once again forced back to the last thing he would like to see right now. "You're never usually silent on discussions like this..." He says, worried again by Izaya's lack of participation.

 

"What do you think, what would you want?" The way he's said it sounds more than just a mindless question.

 

He feels stunned by the sudden inclusion. Just now, it had felt so different, like he was watching the whole thing behind a screen rather than having it play out right in front of him. The silence he is bound to leave in his wake if this attitude is kept up will no doubt be awkward and uncomfortable. But he, he really can't find anything to say, he knows what he wants, always has and always will, but - 

 

"That isn't difficult to think about at all - eternal youth! He's always acting so vain, it's only fitting!"

 

"You know, now that I think about it, doesn't Otousan look younger these days?" Haru comments, as if just seeing Izaya for the first time. He supposed she technically was.

 

Izaya's breath hitches as he finds all eyes on him, and he can only remain uncharacteristically silent. And he absolutely hates it, not being able to control the torrent of foreign feelings welling inside of him. He whips around in panic to face Shizuo, who is also starting to notice the difference. Now that Izaya thinks about it, how did he not see how...aged Shizuo has become.

 

How does Izaya look like now?

 

 

"...Ah, well, I do have my secrets for staying young. Wouldn't you like to know?" He says smoothly, being a master at feigning his way out of difficult situations, though he is a little late. They don't all buy it, but the suspicion is quelled nonetheless.

 

"Stingy, stingy demon!"

 

He tries to shift conversation before any suspicions could be raised and attempts to do so with the children. Most kids were prone to spilling more than they knew. 

 

"Aren't you supposed to be at school soon? He starts with the youngest. The boy was not the most naïve child around, and in fact has proven himself to be quite perceptive, but he was still the least experienced all the same, so it was a safer bet. In another time, he might have tried acting kinder, sweeter, but he had no room for compassion now, being too exasperated and desperate to care. 

 

"Why, you're absolutely right! I suppose I am." Itsuki bites.

 

Now that was a surprise, Izaya was at least certain he would never raise a brat like...himself. Oh.

 

"Then why aren't you getting ready?"

 

"Don't feel like it I guess." His voice embodying every discontent child Izaya has ever heard. He sounded as if he was recalling something from earlier and was beginning to shut himself out from further development. It didn't matter - Izaya had already gathered enough.

 

Shizuo quickly shoos him out of the door after that, where Hana was waiting to chide him loudly as he pulls up his socks. Itsuki hisses back some more and shrugs on his black gakuran and schoolbag, not sparing either of them so much as a 'goodbye' before he is out the door.

 

Seems like Izaya isn't the only one who wants to get away.

 

As the two bicker their way away, Izaya decides that the way the act is too disturbingly familiar.

 

"What about you?" Izaya asks the oldest girl. The question shoots through his mouth like acid. That's not the real question he should be asking, it should have been  _What are you?_

 

And when she looks up with  _his_ eyes, he feels his mind snap.

 

Not for the first, not for the fifth and not for the fiftieth time that morning, Izaya has the uncontrollable urge to  _ruin._ Nothing about this situation was suited for anyone present,  _least_ of all Shizuo, who seemed to be content in his lot. At the very least, Izaya feels the smallest sense of victory at how uneasy he has been acting towards him. It gave him some semblance of control in the uncontrollable direction this was all going, as well as the reassurance that his presence could still be a cause for irritation for the immovable man. 

 

"Huh?" She replies, almost as if she has forgotten. There was an air headedness there, or a hint of dreamy obliviousness that Izaya thinks he has frequently seen in Shizu-chan when the other didn't know he was watching before. "Oh, well, today is a half-day for me, so I can't be bothered to go at all!" She smiles.

 

In the end, Izaya is too out of it to register which one of the two left in the apartment has flipped the channel to something else. Somehow, Izaya finds himself in the very awkward situation of being caught between the two brown-haired individuals. Another unwanted information he has found out is that Shizuo likes watching nature documentaries (like the one called Our Planet) on sites that were still in their early stages of development in Izaya's own world. Animals probably could relate to each other in a certain way Izaya never wants to understand.

 

Now, when everyone else was distracted, Izaya takes it upon himself to piece together everything he has collected so far, and just how much he can use, and just how much he needs to  _destroy._ Rip apart their false security with the secrets no doubt they were all hiding inside.

 

Since there was no apparent threat, he's decided to drop his earlier theory. It was a bit far-fetched, even by his standards. 

 

Starting with the blatantly obvious, this was supposed to be a family.

 

One where  _he_ was involved.

 

Izaya did not do families. No, his love was so pure that he had to love humanity as a whole, every single human on earth equally, and that included his own family. No one went beyond the boundaries and rules he has set up.

 

This should have been no different.

 

He wondered how this development happened. Shizuo was the straightest person Izaya has seen over the years, frankly, even more so than Shinra - if he could even be considered a person, that is. As far as he knows the only people Shizuo has had crushes on in high school were all female, (upperclassmen and teachers alike) and even afterwards he has only ever shown consideration to women.

 

More than that though, even if Shizuo  _was_ attracted to men, there was still the problem of  _them_. IN all of this the most contradicting and out of place factor was their involvement with each other, and the intense hatred that divided them like a giant glass wall, miles of pain wide and years high. If there was any truth that Izaya could be trusted to tell without any deliberate nuances it would be that he  _hated_ Heiwajima Shizuo, hated him with as much emotion as Shizuo hated Izaya back.

 

It was a hatred so fundamental to their relationship and culture of Ikebukuro that for that universally shared view to be shifted under his feet left him free-falling through the ground, not knowing when the impact would kick in.

 

Izaya himself would never consider the option that this could happen. He was not blind to the type of people they were. Heiwajima Shizuo, for all his misgivings, stupidity, aggressiveness, impulsive brashness, propensity for violence and injuring those around him that cost even the slightest inconvenience was still, at his core, a man driven by black-and-white grade school morals. Which, while laughable and immature, also meant that he was not someone who would take advantage of another human being's weaknesses, and could technically be classified as a 'good person' in the barest definition of the word.

 

Heiwajima Shizuo is a good guy.

 

Heiwajima Shizuo is not a nice guy.

 

Heiwajima Shizuo is not happy with himself.

 

Those were the only three truths that Izaya could ever be certain about that man, not that he wanted to spend more time than necessary with him. Regarding Shizuo, there was always bound to be unpleasantness. 

 

Orihara Izaya, on the other hand, was different. He was the type of man who had no room for morals in that dark mind and soul of his. Where his heart should have been there was only a void hole that was constantly bleeding love for his humans, the type of love that was black and eternal and tainted everyone. He was the lowest of the low, capable of anything so long as his desires dictated it, casting aside innocents and sinners alike. It did not matter, for he loved all of them.

 

Orihara Izaya is not capable of love.

 

Orihara Izaya is not loved.

 

Orihara Izaya is fine with that.

 

Those were the biggest misconceptions he hears about himself often. He was capable of love - just that it was the all-encompassing kind that should be spread out for everyone. On one person...it could prove dangerous to himself, or the other. He did not want to end up as either some Martyr or Monster. And while he may accept his unrequited love for the humans who no doubt despised his help, he was loved in his own way. So long as he could be ingrained in the lives of his humans, his existence forever scarred in their minds, he was loved enough. He wouldn't be fine with that otherwise. 

 

They were polar opposite people whose personal values could not have been more misaligned, like they were two parallel lines travelling in opposite directions, never allowed to intersect in those regards.

 

While one could say that love and hate were two sides of the same coin, it did not change the fact that those two sides would never face each other.

 

So  _why_ then, despite everything, did such an illogical outcome occur. It was entirely unexpected, just like that inhuman thing.

 

If anyone had posed the question:  _'What if Orihara Izaya was in love with Heiwajima Shizuo?'._ The answer he would have given was a hysterical laugh and pure happiness at the spectrum of oddities that his humans could come up with.

 

But when said possibility was currently his reality, what would his answer be then?

 

The answer was that there was no answer, for such an occurrence should have never been possible in the first place.

 

Deciding not to think any more about that, he moved on to the more...hands on part of things.

 

He had concluded that  _they_ were likely a result of some biological procedure, maybe In-Vitro, for they resembled physical traits too uncanny to have been coincidence. Or at least, two of them. The middle one did not resonate with the same features as either of them. She had a sharper face than both of them, along with her detached earlobes which made it so that it was unlikely they were blood related. Adoption would have made more sense. However, he stopped thinking about it quick because the more pressing questions about all of them were increasing by the minute, and he did not particularly want certain ones entertained.

 

One thing that Izaya does wonder, however, if any of them has gained Shizuo's source of self-hatred. So far, there had been no indicator from any of them, psychological or physical. But then again, Shizuo had been acting severely out of character, too kind, too genuine, too self-satisfied, too attentive - too much. He was reacting so different than anything Izaya was used to that he was at the brink of begging him to just throw something already.

 

The oldest, the middle, the youngest. Three. They had three. That was three more than Izaya had ever wanted. In the first place, infants were terribly tedious to deal with, spending what little time he did with his sisters has taught him that much. And teenage-hood was not so much better, just more broad.

 

In all of this, he can't escape that thrumming desire in him to see just what the future had in stall for not just him, but the city, or more accurately, humanity. Like yesterday's failed encounter with that client, what could, would and should have happened to him? There were so many humans to see what had become of, especially after their slow and ripe evolution.

 

The shuffling of soft, long hair and arms wrapped around his side shot him back to reality, causing Izaya to stiffen. Was she really curling up to his side?! (There it was again! This whole consuming reality that threatened Izaya's plans and more! What good was everything he had done so far if it all amounted to this, if it all ended the same way, this boring, this - underwhelming!)

 

There had been an unsettling feeling creeping up on him the whole day. If eventually...his humans got over everything and changed...when would they want him again? Was he ever needed in the first place if this was always going to be an outcome? Boring domesticity in the face of all their flaws? Maybe it spoke volumes as to how he has changed or remained if his own family could not yet tell the difference between once and future.

 

Just how was he needed?

 

Only one bitter thought manages to cross his mind at the end of all his conjecture, clear in the haze of utter contempt and confusion.

 

A whole new world indeed, that has such people in it.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I find out that I really suck at dialogue please help. 
> 
> Btw if anyone is interested, I have a tumblr. You can find me @m3hwhateverworks so feel free to come by and we can talk about these two idiots together :D. In the future I hope that I'll post more of my art and story ideas that I can't find the time to write there.
> 
> (Also, I have a plan to start an ask-blog, but it’s a bit too much right now so maybe some other time, but I definitely want to do it soon :3)
> 
> (...I can't believe it's 2019 and I still want to start a shizaya ask blog what am i doing?)


End file.
